v0.34 Talk:Vampire

Lets improve this article

I think it might be a good idea to divide this into two parts, one for adventure mode and one for fortress mode, since it is quite a difference. I'm not very good at wikis, so i dont really want to do anything wrong, but this would be usefull to be added:

• Do vampires actually sustain your fort if everybody else dies?
• vampires usually have tons of sentient creature bone crafts on them in adventure mode
• vampires are often found in high positions in adventure mode
• potential (dwarfy) uses marked d for dwarf

et cetera. just some ideas here, would be happy if somebody did this. --Miauw62 14:19, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

In regards to fortress mode, from my own fortress I have observed the following:

• Vampires in fortress mode also wear lots of bone jewellery which can be used to identify them.
• Vampires in fortress mode are not necessarily highly skilled/ranked (e.g. a peasant in my case).

Also, it should perhaps be noted that due to their lack of thirst or hunger, vampires can be happily locked into a room and used by resourceful players for menial tasks such as lever-pulling, work-managing or bookkeeping.

I believe that vampire skills are frozen, and thus are not particular useful as soldiers unless already skilled - could someone confirm this?

--Flobulon 16:31, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

• Vampires tend to have been part of a lot of forts
• Vampire skills may be frozen but if so it's at bite time and I got a dwarf turned in an existing fort since I leveled his weapon skills extensively in a danger room... no way of knowing pre/post vampirism.

Shadus 18:41, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Vampires' attributes are frozen. Vampires continue to gain (and lose) skill. --Vasiln 00:17, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

This is info from the first patch, but I imagine it hasn't been changed. Vampires don't drink but are still alcohol dependent. This is reflected in the article by mentioning that "s/he really needs a drink", and is because they haven't had any alcohol since they entered your fort. I'm pretty sure this results in the vampire being an immensely poor worker despite never needing to stop to eat/drink. I noticed that a vampire that was jailed and then isolated into a sealed off area became perpetually tired; I think this might be unrelated to the sobriety but I'm not sure. -- Qazmlpok 18:50, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean sobriety from booze or blood? --Headjack

From booze. They need to drink alcohol to avoid the negative effects any other dwarf would experience but do not drink alcohol. The "tired" status was probably from not getting enough blood, but the status message is from alcohol. -- Qazmlpok 13:20, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I've tested the "s/he really needs a drink"/"s/he has not had a drink in far, far too long" Vampire Identification Method^tm and found it to be pretty much useless in vampire CSI. Have updated the page to reflect this new discovery. --CantankerousTank 22:12, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Fixed text to reflect uncertainty Headjack 03:28, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

A few things on my mind: Do vampires actively marry/reproduce? Do vampires have vampire kids? How often do vampires create new vampires through biting & how likely is it? Headjack 08:00, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I had a vampire who had a wife in my fort. They also had a children. However, according legends, it seems that vampire was married and got children before he was cursed to be a vampire. His child was not vampire. 80.247.245.72 13:51, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

--Hey, could someone confirm this for me? I'm finding that vampires cant display custom profession or nicknames given to them. Its happening on my end but I wanna get someone else to back this up; it might be the best way to CSI yet. Headjack 08:34, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

It is true. However, it will also be fixed in the next version. Knight Otu 10:52, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

---

Do they have strange moods? technically they should but i'm not sure

- They do indeed get strange moods, had to let a vampire out of its enclosure for one

-Just found another possible way to identify vampires. A dwarf in my fortress that I'm pretty sure is a vampire is displaying a completely different name ingame from what is being displayed for him in the current Dwarf Therapist. Not sure if someone else more experienced wants to test this and/or update the page, this is my first contribution here. Tombozo 03:14, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

-Thats probably another iteration of the name bug Headjack 20:02, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

-Dwarf Therapist identification can also lead to false positives

- Nice try, vampire. --IC Pandemonium 06:26, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Somebody on Reddit said that zombies won't attack vampires in your fortress. Can anyone confirm/deny this? FatherLatour 00:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

-I don't know, I am now 3 for 3 vampires positively identified in my fortress, none of whom have names that match the name that Dwarf Therapist shows for them. I wouldn't doubt that this is related to the nickname bug, but it wouldn't surprise me if this (at least the DF part) were intentional behavior. It makes sense - a vampire who lived in 10-20 forts in the past, changes names every time they move. It is possible that the name Therapist shows is their original name, and the name shown ingame is a new alias; this could be the source of the nickname bug - the player can't give the vampire a new name, because the vampire has already given himself one. Tombozo 01:58, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

-I have a new immigrant that seems suspicious. Every single thing in her wound menu is inhibited or broken. I'm able to nickname her but she doesn't show up on Dwarf Therapist. I'm going to keep an eye on her... Has anyone seen anything like this?

I've had several immigrants like this, so far they've turned out to be 'normal' and, if you save and reload, DT discovers them. My current theory, based on a large number of missing ears, is elven raiders jealous of dwarven ears.

-This page doesn't specify whether vampire dwarves will specifically target living dwarves or if a vampire will feed on another vampire. Has anyone ever observed this?

Vampires only feed on sleeping creatures. Vampires never sleep. Therefore, Vampire never feed on vampires. --Timrem 19:31, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Vampires will rest if wounded. I'm pretty sure I've seen vampires feed on resting dwarves, not just sleeping. Could be worth testing at least. -- Qazmlpok 13:41, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I can confirm that vampires and undead will not attack each other in fortress mode. During an undead siege I sent my vampire pikeman outside and closed the bridge. Both parties ignored the other, however the undead did fight back after giving an explicit attack order. You could use a single vampire to fight off an undead horde if your fort is sealed, but issuing attack orders to 80+ undead is a pain, and if you seal off your fort it's simply more fun to use magma. It should be possible to use this fact to quickly flush out a vampire. Build a contained area next to a critical hallway that every dwarf will pass through. Use fortifications to allow viewing the area while preventing (most) crossbowdwarves from shooting in, and a bridge so it can be turned off. Place an undead creature in the area and lower the bridge. As each dwarf passes by the undead, they should panic and ran away - unless they are a vampire. I imagine that this would quickly filter out any vampires in your fort, but I haven't tested any of it. -- Qazmlpok 13:41, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

- Mass kill designation might help a bit with that. -- Frogwarrior 15:07, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Do vampires produce ghosts if improperly memorialized? Considering converting my fortress into vampires with a tainted well. --Introprospector 01:17, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, they do. -- Qazmlpok 03:05, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Page also doesn't say if Vampires will feed off their own rellies, and thus make themselves unhappy. I'll test this to find out, if nobody knows. (I have one who had a son in the fortress - I'm fairly sure this vampire immigrated, too; so either he came with a wife and kid or that happened in the fort. Will also find out if child is a vamp.) Apparently missdiagnosed vampire. He got hungry. No idea who it is, now. Sorry! --Zatnik 16:38, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Instead of enforcing Justice normally, once I determine who the vampire is I've just been locking them up in a room by drafting them and stationing them in a room, then forbidding the door. Twice now I've had them get out and discovered the formerly locked door to be "Passable", but not pet passable. I'm quite certain I never unforbade it myself, doubly so since I would have made it pet passable as well. Do vampires have a way to pick locks, or could there be some other force opening the doors? This is in the middle of my fort so a hidden gremlin/thief should be impossible. -- Qazmlpok 22:55, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Very likely vampire's "hair is dark brown with flecks of grey" in my most recent fort (from v0.34.6) am adding a verify tag to the "white hair" section of identification... have a nasty feeling that the vamps have developed hair colouring. Earthfiredrake 03:10, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Just a quick note about the "He has the appearance of someone (x) years old and is among the first of his kind" line. I don't know firsthand how useful this is for vampire ID in general, but in a world with a very short history, any dwarf older than the world will have this line for their age. So, for example, I've got a fortress in year 8 of its world, so any dwarf older than 8 years old has this. This caused me to briefly worry that I had an all-vamp fort before I figured it out. 19:00 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Melancholy

To get rid of the 5 vampires I had locked up, I sent them to kill a forgotten beast duster. Unfortunately one survived despite the syndrome and infection, but with the severe wounds and his friends dying and rotting in front of him, he went insane. Somehow he got cured of the infection and appears to be in perfect health now. As he doesn't need food or drink to survive he isn't going to die on his own. Supposedly melancholic dwarves will jump off cliffs or into magma, but he doesn't seem to be even trying to do that. Is there anything I can do to get rid of him? -- Qazmlpok 17:37, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Mmh, they gravitate to meeting areas, trap him somewhere and add magma, or just trap him in a cavern. Headjack 00:30, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Atom Smashing Vamps Is Dangerous

Vampire Ghosts? If you thought you had it bad before, there have been reports that vampire ghosts are un-slabbable; and their ghosts are still thirsty...

This issue is supposedly fixed according to the 34.05 change log. Testing is still required to see if vampire ghosts can be atom-smashed with impunity now (though the tearing off of limbs would probably still be a detriment).--Tenyn42 20:42, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

-I smashed a vampire, they later popped back up again as a restless spirit (I'll need to check the legends to see just how troubled their life was). I'm using the vanilla edition, and once people noticed the ghost they were classed as 'deceased' and I could engrave a slab.

First vamp notes

I just got my first vamp (I think he's the first one...) and he was identified completely by accident. All of a sudden I got a message that "Stodir Keskalosir, Dwarf Butcher vampire cancels..." Although I'd not noticed it before, he does appear by that name and title in the unit listings now, and he also has his night creature tile. He has not attacked anyone yet, my fort has 0 dead dorfs and 0 missing ones. I do have Dwarf Therapist and DFHack, so one of those may explain why he was auto-revealed. His name does match the one shown in Therapist, notably. I did discover a method to flush out vamps, though. His details indicate that he is 98 years old, born in the year 7. Its currently year 252. So he's lying about almost a hundred and fifty years, roughly an entire normal dorf's lifespan. If someone can verify it, let's add "has a mismatched birth year and age combination" to the methods of catching one. In other news, I'm planning a vampire work pit: A small pit, with a level above and a level below. Raw materials are dumped into the top, the vamp(s) inside process them, then dump them back down the other side for retrieval. --Waladil 21:17, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Unconfirmed

Think this is another instance of name bug. I set one of my vampires up in a labyrinth (he can open goblin cages himself without a lever, woot!) He has enough kills to warrant a longer name, at least according to therapist, but he still shows his original short name. Presumably this would be an additional way to ID vamps if confirmed.

Vampire Diplomat

I just got a human law-giver vampire diplomat in my fortress. He just arrived so I don't know if he'll start anything funky, but I was wondering if anyone else had experience with this? Anything I've got to watch for? And if so, it may be worthwhile to add the possibility to this page. Angry B8 15:56, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

-I've just had the same experience - due to some past grievances with their kind, I'm going to try to dispose of them in a manner which probably won't be linked back to me, and I'll post the results up. (21 March 2012) ---Turns out the humans were remarkably ungrateful about the fact that I had delivered them from their vampire overlord, so they besieged me. He didn't go down without a fight - I released several goblins into his room, and he shoved his human-bone jewellery right through their skulls before going down after an armed swordsman struck him down. Conclusion from all of this, vampire diplomats exist and are still treated as respected members of their own civilisation.

- One of my two known vamps somehow became Baron so he's locked into his quarters with a couple wall grates and levers. Suddenly this Serpent Man vampire law giver diplomat shows up! I had to open the Baron's enclosure up and they are now negotiating. I'm quite excited to see what the result will be.

Zero Variation

Just adding a little note here, in case anybody else is curious about the same things as I am: I had a look through a lot of the vampires in my world.sav, and there was no variation between any of the vampire curses. Every vampire curse was identical to the example curse: strength, agility, toughness+200, standard tag changes, nothing else. --Vasiln 22:56, 31 March 2012 (UTC)